As the story goes, comedian Louis C.K. spent years doing the same material on stage over and over, night after night. His jokes were successful, but one day he heard how George Carlin, one of his idols, tossed out his material every year and wrote all new stuff. This changed Louie’s approach profoundly and it altered the course of his career.

I suspect the fact that Louie now writes a whole new act every year and is not only one of comedy’s brightest and funniest stars, but also one of its most thoughtful and intelligent commentators on life, is hardly a coincidence. As Louie put it once (I’m paraphrasing), when you’re done talking about flying on airplanes, fast food, and the difference between men and women, the only thing left is to start again, to go deeper, to look inside.

The same is true with teaching.

For us to go deeper as teachers, we must be willing to start with a beginner’s mind, to jettison the comfortable, to risk coming up with all new stuff, to look inside ourselves for the material that no one else is willing to put on stage.

But every year?

Yeah, maybe. If that's what it takes.

There’s nothing wrong with hanging on to a favorite lesson as an anchor or to keep that killer activity that always works, but what about starting with a new lesson or two for every unit? The challenge is to have the courage to throw stuff away and start again, to try different things, to go up in front of the class and, in the parlance of comedy, completely bomb. Because completely bombing is sometimes what it takes to get to the good stuff.

What if every June we threw away most of what we did and spent some of the summer coming up with new material? How would that change our game? Much like in the world of comedy, not all of it will work. But if we have the guts to throw out our “A” game, we just might find our work and our classroom and our spirits feeling a little fresher and more meaningful because we were willing to start again, to go deeper, to look inside.

I also heard a story once--though its origin escapes me--of a teacher who was speaking to his father, also an educator, and the father said, “By all means, teach for twenty years. Just don’t teach the same year twenty times.” This anecdote is a profound endorsement of the concept of Beginner’s Mind, of going back to the beginning to dig deeper, to reach farther, to try again.

Make no mistake: This proposition is terrifying. Get rid of all the stuff I know works with no guarantee that the new stuff will help them learn? Horrifying! Petrifying! But without these kinds of risks, it’s almost impossible to remember what it’s like to come at something as a beginner (especially if you’ve been a teacher for awhile) and it certainly makes it harder to burn through the mediocre stuff to those activities and concepts that will make your teaching (and by extension, your students’ learning) transcendent.

So as scary as it is, I’m going to make that commitment right here and now. I may not throw away everything at first, but in the next month or so, I’m going to take a good, hard look at my curriculum and while staying in the bounds of what’s required by my department, site, district, and state, I will start again and create some all new stuff that pushes the envelope.

Right now, for example, I’m thinking of a pile of worksheets and activity handouts on the desk in my office that I’ve always kept around just because someday I “might” use them. That pile has been there, I’m guessing, since Apollo 13 told Houston there was a problem.

I think the first thing I’ll do when I head back to the classroom in August is walk into my office and, in a grand and sweeping motion, slide that stack right off of my desk and into the trash can.

Then I’ll come up with some all new stuff to take its place.

Just thinking about it makes me excited for the coming fall.

I’m no genius like Carlin or C.K., but I can certainly follow their example to dig deeper, to start again, and to embrace what it means to be a beginner again.

If the themes I’ve covered in this blog have resonated with you, and you’re looking for more of the same, I invite you to subscribe to the new monthly Zen Teacher newsletter. This new Zen Teacher feature will be sent to your email inbox once a month and will include many Zen Teacher extras, including helpful resources on Mindfulness, Meditation, Simplicity, and Peace.

In The Zen Teacher newsletter you will find reflections and mini-blog posts written by me, links to helpful and relevant articles, inspirational quotes, and inspiring photos. Perhaps most exciting, however, is every month I will have new, zen-inspired activities and challenges that will help you in your own path to focus, peace, and tranquility—both inside and outside the classroom. One of my favorite parts, though, is that you will be among the first to receive information about my upcoming book entitled The Zen Teacher: Creating Focus, Peace, and Tranquility in the Classroom.

To receive the newsletter, all you need to do to is visit my website and enter your email address in the contact form (or click here) and leave me a little message saying you wish to be included in the subscription list and, starting this month, I will send you my newsletter.

I’m very excited about this new feature and I hope it will be of great value to subscribers.

As always, I would love to hear from regarding anything you see here, in the newsletter, or in the upcoming book.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for joining me on this journey. TZT

Do we really need another professional development session on Google Docs*?

Do we really need another professional development session on how to implement the Common Core standards?

Do we really need another professional development session where we waste our time writing and revising hoop-jumping self-reports to ensure our accreditation (here, in California, they call it WASC--the Western Association of Schools and Colleges).

Sure, these things must be addressed. And we should carve out time to do that. But at least in my experience in the last decade or so, the professional development I have been offered is redundant, irrelevant, or simply isn’t about my profession nor my development as an educator.

In my experience, the sessions where I get together with my peers are used to spoon feed us the latest circus that has come to town or to give us time to meet one of the aforementioned accreditation obligations.

Youtube can teach me how to use a Chromebook.

Or I can ask our tech person when I have a question.

And while making sure schools are doing what schools should be doing is critical, the current accreditation process is a joke and can go Forget Itself (I’m thinking of different word, but this is a family show, so I’ll say, “forget”).

Send me a memo about the new fire alarm and lockdown policies; don’t use our professional developement time to read and explain the memo to me.

Instead, find a way to send me to the last two conferences I asked to go to when my requests were denied. I'm not certain, but I suspect the question employees at Microsoft and Apple ask is not, “Can I go to the conference?” but “Which conference sounds better?”

In short, professional development and collaboration time should be used for, well, professional development.

When do I get to learn about how to teach better and within the current realities of my profession?

When do I get to learn strategies to deal with hunger, poverty, and abuse in my student population?

When I do I get to learn techniques for streamlining my teaching practice to accommodate forty students per class?

When do I get the time to write new curriculum with my peers that isn’t crammed into our one-hour a week collaboration time? (In fairness to my school, this one sometimes happens, but it’s rare. . .)

When do I get to see experts in my field, on-site workshops with leaders who love teaching and learning, who are trying new things, who are pushing the envelope in our industry in a way that will excite, motivate, and inspire me?

When do I get to do THAT in my professional development?

Right now, for example, one of the top educational professional speakers in the world is Dave Burgess, author of Teach Like a Pirate. Dave worked at my school FOR NEARLY TWENTY YEARS and, at least at my school and district, we are never offered opportunities to see presenters of Dave’s caliber.

Why is that?

If your school or district offers you these types of opportunities, take advantage of them and never take them for granted. You are the lucky ones.

But please remember: You also have a voice.

Encourage your professional development leaders to give you opportunities that are relevant to you as an educator, that fit your needs and your curiosity as teachers, that fulfill you both professionally and personally.

Ask them to design professional development that addresses your curiosities.

Ask them to design professional development that addresses your well-being.

Ask them to design professional development that addresses the realities of working in the classroom you toil in everyday.

Ask (demand?) to be motivated, excited, and inspired by what is happening when you develop professionally.

Because you know what?

Those opportunities will benefit The Powers That Be as well--even though they don’t realize it.

A challenged, fulfilled educator who can explore her curiosity is a happier, better, more highly-skilled educator.

And not only is that better for the district. It’s obviously better for students.

So now that it’s summer, reflect on what kind of professional development would benefit you.

Then ask. Cajole. Coerce. Maybe even whine a little.

It may be too late to implement for the fall, but why not after that?

Seriously: Do not settle for another workshop on how to do a screencast.

You know how to do a screencast.

Or you can learn how to do a screencast.

Probably from watching a screencast.

Ask for real professional development.

Tell them to stop wasting your time. TZT

*I'm not trying to pick on educational technology in this piece; technology has been an indispensable addition to modern public education. But at least in my experience, its pursuit and the chasing of the newest and most dazzling toy takes up an INORDINATE amount of professional development that should be shared among MANY possible topics that can make us better educators.

I’m about a week into my summer now and, even though my daily routine has changed, it’s important to find those moments for focus, simplicity, and tranquility.

Here are a handful of things I’ve done in the last week in pursuit of a greater sense of Zen:

1. Creating. Each morning I’ve spent time writing. I’ve started a new book (and in the coming weeks will have AWESOME news concerning the book length version of The Zen Teacher).

2. Observing Rituals. For the third year in a row, my daughters and I have designated Wednesday as Ice Cream Day. Each Hump Day I take them down to the local Rite Aid and we hang out in front of the store talking and eating ice cream. Even though it doesn’t cost much, it has become a small, but very special ritual that we all look forward to every summer. 3. Practicing Non-doing. I’ve made time to sit on our back patio and look the trees, listen to the birds, and watch the squirrels as they chatter among themselves on the hillside. I’ve also been Netflix-binging on The Dick Van Dyke show, a favorite of mine from childhood, which still holds up, is still hilarious, and has once again re-ignited an age-old crush on Laurie Petrie that, by my count, started around the time I was six or seven.4. Meditating. Paradoxically, in the less structured schedule of summer, I’ve had a harder time to remember to stop, be still, and just focus on my breathing, so those moments when I do remember take on even greater significance. But it’s so helpful when I do.

5. Increasing My Space and Simplicity. I cleaned my room. And if you had any sense of my summer propensity for laziness, you’d know what a monumental achievement we’re talking about here.

6. Enjoying Art. I have been feeding my soul by reading (even if it is for the summer school class I’m teaching, the books have been excellent), listening to music that speaks to my heart and soul (mostly classic rock, as you know), and taking time to appreciate God’s artwork in Nature (not the least of which was many days of walking out on my driveway during the gorgeous summer dusks just to see Jupiter and Mars sitting right next to a gorgeous moon).

My personal financial situation and personal schedule doesn’t really allow me to travel (though I’m living vicariously through my teacher peers from my school, some of whom are posting pictures from places like Paris, Washington D.C. and, closer to home here in San Diego, Big Sur), but part of my message here is that it isn’t always necessary to travel thousands of miles to experience peace and relaxation or to rediscover a sense of renewal and rejuvenation. Those experiences might be as close as the easy chair in your living room or the lawn chair in your backyard.

So during this change in schedule, obligations, and routines, please remember to carve out some “you” time so you can give your best back to the world and the people you care about.

Happy summer to all my teacher peers!* TZT*I know some of you are in year-round schools, so happy break whenever that may occur for you. . .

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” -- Japanese proverb This morning I got into a little back and forth with a driver who was tailgating me.

I could have changed lanes. I could have slowed down and let him pass. I could have shown him some zen-inspired lovingkindness. I could have, as an old friend suggested, generated compassion and empathy by imagining that any driver who is speeding and tailgating must, of course, be transporting a sick child to the local hospital’s ER. But I didn’t. I engaged him. I tapped my brakes to let him know he was too close. And then it became a thing. Before I knew it, we were exchanging impassioned words and frenetic gestures--Words where we questioned the others’ genetic heritage and gestures that, at first, began as random and abstract expressions of confusion and frustration, but eventually evolved into nonverbal gestures with specific messages attached. In short, I participated in just about every single behavior that I use this blog to advise you against. I’m not proud of my behavior. I stumbled. I ignored my Zen training and fell off the road rage wagon. And since I cannot change what happened, I can only begin by standing up, brushing myself off, and honoring my Zen philosophies by accepting my behavior, not judging myself too harshly, and recommitting to a life approach of lovingkindess and compassion.So it’s all right to stumble. In fact, it’s unavoidable and inevitable. The key is to acknowledge it, own it, and recommit to the walk. And remember, just because we’re going to stumble doesn’t mean we’re not on this journey together.The lesson here is two fold:

Even teachers who love to teach are glad to see the summer. And that's okay. They've earned it. And in a way, the more glad they are to see June, the harder they know they’ve worked, and that’s a testament to their commitment.

But while teachers have certainly earned a break after nine months of busting their body, hearts, minds, and souls in some of the most important work imaginable, summer time is also a great time for The 4 Rs—reflection, relaxation, renewal, and radical self-care.

Here are some questions to get you thinking, starting first and foremost with the question teachers never want to think about: What can you do—right now—to take care of YOU?

Here are a few others to get you going:

What went well last year?

What new thing did you do this year that you will DEFINITELY do again next year?

How can you make it better?

How can you CELEBRATE your accomplishments?

What seemed essential this year, but just wasn’t?

What can you get rid of? What can you jettison to create more space for your passion?

What is in your classroom, physically, that you can do without to create more space?

What is one thing you want to try or experiment with next year?

How can you get to your favorite place more often in the next few months?

How can you see that particular person more often who you hardly ever see, but who always makes you feel better?

How can you enhance your plans for renewal this June, July, and August?

How can you be more present in each of your moments?

How can you increase the activities you WANT to do?

How can you decrease the activities you DON’T WANT to do?*

How can you carve out some time for non-doing?

What can you participate in (books, workshops, conferences, classes, internet research, podcasts, etc.) that will make you a better TEACHER** in the fall?

What can you participate in (vacations, meditation, beach, mountains, camping, etc.) that will make you a better PERSON** in the fall?

What can you do (now that it’s summer) that you just haven’t had time for because of your classroom obligations all year? Now go do it.***

What can you do to show GRATITUDE for the year you have had and to be appreciative of the time and space you will get during these next three months that not every working person is allowed?

This is far from an exhaustive list of questions, but I hope it will get you thinking about the rare opportunity you have during the next few months to sit back, take a breath, enjoy your accomplishments, renew your mind, body, and spirit, and look forward to a fall that will come for you with maybe just a smidgeon more peace and tranquility. TZT

* I realize, of course, that we all have obligations over the summer, too. **important distinction ***painting, horseback riding, quilting, writing, One Direction karaoke, what?